31 



NATURAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



of sigillaria trees. Examining 

 coal with a microscope, after prop- 

 er preparation, we can see the 

 structure of the wood from which 

 the coal was derived. Of eighty- 

 one distinct seams of coal in Nova 

 Scotia, every one but two or three 

 had sigillaria, either in the coal or 

 immediately above or beneath it. 

 The top of a coal seam is merely 

 the debris of the last forest that 

 grew on this swamp where the 

 coal was produced. Great Britain 

 annually consumes 100,000,000 

 tons of coal, and we know of noth- 

 ing that will supply its place. The 

 consumption of coal in America is 

 already equal to the labor of 150,- 

 000,000 horses, and our coal beds 

 are as yet hardly opened. All this 

 power is extracted from the sun- 

 beams of the paleozoic period. 

 (Applause. ) 



What did these magnificent for- 

 ests grow for? There seem to 

 have been no higher animals to en- 

 joy them. We know of no birds 

 that lived among their branches. 

 We know of a few insignificant 

 reptiles that crawled beneath them 

 but we know of nothing higher in 

 that age. What were they created 

 for? For two great purposes. 

 First, to purify the atmosphere so 

 that it might be made suitable for 

 the higher animals that were to 

 live in a future geologic period; 

 and that very process of purifying 

 the atmosphere was made means 

 of laying up those enormous stores 

 of fossil fuel upon which so much 

 of our modern civilization is based. 

 See how grand are the economies 

 of nature, preparing far back in 

 geologic periods before man exist- 

 ed, for the existence of the present 

 state of the arts in the world. 



Next to coal in its value comes 

 iron; and although we are not so 

 dependent upon the coal formation 

 for iron as we are for coal, still we 

 get an immense quantity of iron 

 from the carboniferous rocks accu- 

 mulated by the agency of these 

 very plants; for as they went to de- 

 cay, and were converted into coal 

 they helped to gather together the 

 particles of iron out of the clays 

 and sands, and to store them up 

 for us in iron ore. Therefore we 

 owe to the growth of those old 

 forests not only our coal but a 

 large portion of our iron. And 

 whether we look to the value of 

 the coal in boiling the teakettle of 

 which Prof. Silliman spoke to you 

 in the last lecture or in the use of 

 the iron which makes our iron 

 horse, and the steam engine of our 

 factories, we owe it all to the prim- 

 eval plants, or rather the Maker 



and Creator of these old plants. 



Now let me trace these plants a 

 little further back than the period 

 of the coal formation. If we go 

 back from the carboniferous rocks 

 to the Devonian, we shall find a 

 different flora, which no doubt 

 helped to purify the air, and pre- 

 pare the world for the carbonifer- 

 ous flora. We have in Canada a 

 bed of coal two or three inches 

 thick, belonging to that epoch, 

 and it is the only one I know in 

 America. In this drawing, some 

 of the plants of that period are 

 represented; and here you find the 

 sigillaria, the lepidodendron, the 

 calamites, the pines, etc., as in the 

 later period; so that you see that 

 the Devonian flora was really not 

 very different from that of the car- 

 boniferous period. The species are 

 mostly different but the generic 

 forms are the same. As a whole 

 the Devonian flora may be char- 

 acterized as less massive and mag- 

 nificent, more delicate and slender 

 in its proportions; not less beauti- 

 ful but less useful perhaps in the 

 accumulation for us of vast stores 

 of fuel. If we go down below the 

 Devonian rocks into the Silurian, 

 we find a few plants; but in the 

 lower Silurian formation we hard- 

 ly find any traces of plants. Near- 

 ly all the rocks known to us of 

 that age were marine rocks. Prof. 

 D. was not hopeless of the eozoic 

 period even. We have as yet 

 no plants there; but we have found 

 carbon. We have found plum- 

 bago; and even in later formations 

 the remains of plants have some- 

 times been converted into black- 

 lead in the eozoic strata, occurring 

 in beds, so as much to resemble 

 the remains of plants. They have 

 been sea plants. If they were land 

 plants we may guess what they 

 were — anophytes and thallophytes, 

 gigantic mosses and gigantic lich- 

 ens. If we were to walk among 

 those ancient forests of mosses, if 

 they really did exist, we should be 

 in a world something like what this 

 would appear to an insect creeping 

 upon the mosses of our woods. 



I have given you but a faint out- 

 line of a great subject, on which 

 treatises might be and have been 

 written, which would afford the 

 material for a course of lectures 

 more interesting than a single one 

 can possibly be. The chief inter- 

 est of the subject, no doubt, is to 

 the botanist and geologist. The 

 vegetable kingdom now is most 

 beautiful and most varied, espec- 

 ially when we look at it as present- 

 ing forms of plants adapted to 

 every climate and every situation 



upon earth, all of them finding 

 their proper place and their own 

 due season. But the subject be- 

 fore us carries us back into geolog- 

 ic times, and shows us a plan too 

 large to be realized on one earth. 



The plan of the Creator was so 

 vast th^t the whole surface of the 

 earth was not big enough to hold 

 it. It required a series of earths, 

 one after the other, to develop it, 

 just as it has required a series of 

 ages to develop the history of the 

 human race. We have in these 

 old plants something that adds 

 enormously to the variety of the 

 vegetable kingdom; something that 

 shows us how small is our own 

 knowledge, and how great and 

 capable of extension is the plan of 

 the vegetable kingdom. And 

 when we consider further that we 

 know of these fossil plants only 

 what their remains have taught us, 

 it affords a widening field of won- 

 der and of thought. As it is more 

 interesting to the botanist to go 

 out and collect plants for himself, 

 than to study them in the class 

 books, so this subject is of the 

 deepest interest to those who will 

 examine the primeval flora and the 

 coal formations; who will split 

 open the rocks and see the forms 

 that no one ever saw before, and 

 perhaps make discoveries of facts 

 which the world never knew bo- 

 fore concerning that remote period 

 of time. I must plead guilty as a 

 fossil botanist — I mean a botanist 

 studying fossils [laughter] — to 

 having the deepest interest in this 

 subject. And it arises in part from 

 the very fact that different names 

 are sometimes given to the same 

 plant — as the tree is called sigil- 

 laria, the root stigmaria, and the 

 nut still another name; and it re- 

 quires much observation and study 

 to discover that • these different 

 names all belong to what was real- 

 ly one and the same plant. As 

 our knowledge increases we may 

 be able to dispense with many of 

 these old names, which is more 

 than can be said of modern botany. 



What would we have done with- 

 out these old plants, without this 

 great provision made for us : n 

 primitive times before man existed 

 upon the earth? These plants 

 form a part of the same plan to 

 which we belong, and undoubted- 

 ly that plan existed at the time 

 these old paleozoic plants grew. 



And now, I may say, even in 

 this Christmas time, as we gather 

 around the hearth, although our 

 coal fire does not burn, and crackle 

 and blaze like the old yew log of 

 our ancestors, yet the trunks of 



